...Best of 2011

Top 2011 Music:
Indian - Guiltless
Evile - Fire Serpent's Teeth
400 Blows - Sickness & Health
Helms Alee - Weatherhead
Rabbits - Lower Forms
Today is the Day - Pain Is a Warning
Earth - Angels of Darkness...

Top non-2011 music
Nirvana - Nevermind [20th Anniversary]
Black Breath - Heavy Breathing
A Flock of Seagulls - S/T
The Who - Quadrophenia [Reissue]
Stevie Wonder - Songs In The Key of Life
Janet Jackson - Rhythm Nation
The Smiths - Box Set
108 -18.61
Pulp - Different Class
Groundhogs - Thank Christ for the Bomb
The B-52's - The B-52's
Janet Jackson - Control

Top 2011 Movies
Drive
The Muppets
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
American: The Bill Hicks Story
X-men: First Class
13 Assassins
The Troll Hunter
Super

Top Books I Read in 2011
Everybody Loves Out Town
Ubik
The Pixar Touch
Inside Scientology
Just My Type: A Book About Fonts
Boozehound
The World in Six Songs
Rat Salad: Black Sabbath
What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures
Everyone Loves You When You're Dead
A Short History of Nearly Everything

Top 2011 Games
Skyrim
Batman: Arkham City
Portal 2
Plants vs Zombies (Android)
LA Noire
Battlefield 3
Uncharted 3
Atom Zombie Smasher
The Path of Go

...All 2011 Reviews

Recommended in Bold

Music: 

Void - Sessions 1981-83
Obake - Obake
Indian - Guiltless 

George Harrison - All Things Must Pass
Leviathan - Massive Conspiracy Against All Life
Leviathan - True Traitor, True Whore
108 -18.61
The Who - Quadrophenia
Bauhaus - 1979-1983 Vol. 2
Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream [Deluxe]Evile - Fire Serpent's Teeth
Indian - Guiltless
Stevie Wonder - Songs In The Key of Life 

All Else Failed - This Never Happened
Pink Floyd - The Dark Side of the Moon
Trash Talk - Awake [EP]
The Smiths - Box Set
The Cure - The Head on the Door
The Cure - Seventeen Seconds
Nirvana - Nevermind [20th Anniversary]
Handsome Furs - Sound Kapital
Siouxsie and the Banshees - Twice Upon a Time 

Today is the Day - Pain Is a Warning
Yob - Atma
400 Blows - Sickness & Health
Steely Dan - Pretzel Logic
Fleetwood Mac - Tusk 

A Flock of Seagulls - S/T
Helms Alee - Weatherhead
Pulp - Different Class 

R.E.M. - Life's Rich Pageant [Deluxe]
Tom Petty - Dam the Torpedoes [Deluxe]
Wiccans - Skullduggery
These Are Powers - All Aboard Future
Iceage - New Brigade
The Psychic Paramount - Gamelan Into the Mink Supernatural
Groundhogs - Thank Christ for the Bomb
The B-52's - The B-52's 

The Men - Leave Home
The B52's - The B52's
Steely Dan - Can't Buy a Thrill
Radio Control - Hot Audio
Groundhogs - Thank Christ for the Bomb
Battles - Gloss Drop
Fucked Up - David Comes to Life
Lady Gaga - Born This Way
Cave In - White Silence
Janet Jackson - Control 

Janet Jackson - Rhythm Nation
Trap Them - Darker Handcraft
Rabbits - Lower Forms
Earth - Angels of Darkness...
Chic - The Definitive Collection

Blacklisted - Heaver Than Heaven...

Black Breath - Heavy Breathing

Ghost - Opus Eponymous

Sweet Cobra - Mercy

Blacklisted - No One Deserves to...

Iggy Pop - Kill City [Remix]

Movies: 

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo 

Young Adult
The Muppets
Hugo
Drive
Cowboys and Aliens
Harry Potter 15,000
Hobo with a Shotgun
American: The Bill Hicks Story
X-men: First Class

13 Assassins
The Troll Hunter
Source Code
Super

Books:

Rat Salad: Black Sabbath
Just My Type: A Book About Fonts
Everybody Loves Out Town 
Boozehound
Inside Scientology
Imbibe!
The Longevity Project
The World in Six Songs 
What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures
Emotional Design
Drive
Ubik

Everyone Loves You When You're Dead

The Big Short

Esquire Guide to Style

The Pixar Touch
A Short History of Nearly Everything

Games:
Skyrim
Batman: Arkham City
Battlefield 3
Uncharted 3
The Path of Go
Mount and Blade: With Fire and Sword
Brink 
Plants vs Zombies (Android)
LA Noire
Portal 2

Atom Zombie Smasher

Bulletstorm

...New City, New Job

I'm in Seattle now!  I start at PopCap in February.

...I have a new web site

Hey I have a new website, sylvaind.com.  I spent a few days making it in HTML, CSS, with a tiny bit of Javascript.  The new site is mostly focused on my career so I'll keep blogging here for now.  Send me any thoughts!

... Cheap new cds at Newbury comics this week

...pics from the last couple months

Here's some pics of recent outing.  I just got back from my friend Joe's wedding in Boca Raton...so happy for them!

Trash Talk at the Middle East

Trip to Ports-mouth

Out of 20 pics I took at Karaoke, this was the only one that came out good

The weather was as good as could be expected

almost there...

Let's get started...

Joe looks just like his pops!

Will is my doppelganger taking pics on the other side

Aww

Aww (2)

Add caption

The Kiss!

You did it!

Party!

THE Dance

THE Dance

Tradition

On the dance floor

The food was sooo good

...some reviews of the Fender Squire Strat and Rock Band 3

http://malvasiabianca.org/archives/2011/03/focused-practice-redux/
http://malvasiabianca.org/archives/2010/11/focused-practice-in-games/

http://www.destructoid.com/review-rock-band-3-fender-squier-guitar-controller-197063.phtml

...Download my GDC talk

You can check out the presentation Jason Booth and I gave about how Harmonix created Pro Guitar in Rock Band 3 here!

...currently in sf!

Here are pics from my phone...now back to the Maniac Mansion postmort.

...In San Francisco next week!

I'll be in San Francisco next week attending GDC and giving a talk with my coworker Jason Booth.  Excited to see old friends and eat yummy burritos!  If you going to GDC come by and see my talk!

Prototype Through Production: Pro Guitar in ROCK BAND 3

DAY / TIME / LOCATION: Wednesday 1:30- 2:30 Room 134, North Hall
DESCRIPTION: How do you go from an insane idea like Let's teach non-guitarists how to play a real guitar in ROCK BAND 3 to a genre changing product in 20 months? We will detail the process used to rapidly prototype this concept and evaluate ideas, through initial prototypes to user testing and final production. We will discuss our need to re-invent music notation for guitar, and how we applied traditional game-play metaphors and techniques to the process of teaching. We will also detail the complex interdependencies created by designing and manufacturing your own hardware, which is both freeing and terrifying at the same time. The Pro-Guitar mode in ROCK BAND 3 ended up going far beyond our original goals, and we will explore how pushing past those goals exposed inherent limitations in our model.

...Busy February!

Ok January sucked and was crazy snowy.  February has turned out to be pretty amazing weather and otherwise.  Don't believe me?  See pics for proof!  I'm currently hard at work on my GDC talk for next week - updates about that soon.

New Years!:

Bryn and Naoko playing live:

Party at Dean and Christina's:

Doomriders and Sweet Cobra:

Dancing twice at Heroes Night:

Saw the end of the Freedom Trail: